viernes, 22 de septiembre de 2017

Natalya stopped by the hotel only for a few
minutes, enough time to pick up whatever she had brought along with her to that
damn place and then get out of there as fast as she could. She put it all in a
small suitcase with wheels and practically ran down to the reception in order
to pay whatever she owed. It wasn’t something she did often, but she had been
made to pay for dinner in her room, as her target had not being available that
night. He was too far for her to follow him as he had to.

The woman asked for her receipt. As she was
grabbing her wallet to pay the reception man, she realized something in just a
few seconds: a man wearing all black had suddenly stood up in the living room
in front of the reception. Almost at the same time, a tall woman with hair as
white as snow, had entered the hotel almost as if she was the impersonation of
the wind. Their presence made Natalya feel nervous. Something was going to
happen, she just knew it. She extracted two bills from her wallet and tried to
seem innocent.

The moment the reception man received the
bills from her hands, Natalya heard the first shot behind her. As fast as she
was, it had been impossible to save her luggage entirely. She pulled to the
left just in time and then ran away from the lobby area, trying to get away
from the scene as fast as possible. Screams came from the area she had just
been in and she knew there were bodies there. One of them was probably the
young man that had given her that damn dinner’s receipt.

It was difficult to run with boots on but
Natalya was very agile and fast. So fast, that people in the kitchens were
surprised to see her run past them, minutes before the two assassins would come
running after her. She was fortunate enough to find an exit through the depot
were fresh vegetables and meat were received every morning from various markets
around the city. She ran past workingmen carrying big crates and didn’t stop
until she actually saw traffic and passersby.

The hotel was
located on the most sought out part of the city, where all luxury commerce had
found a spot to lure everyone. Not only people that could actually afford to
buy any of that stuff but also the ones who liked to see what opportunities
others had in life. As it was a Saturday afternoon, the place was packed. The
main street of that area was filled with families and couples, with tourists
and salary men and women trying to find a good place to have a beer and maybe
do something else afterwards. And among them was Natalya, running for her life.

She knew she
had to hide but the first thing to do was to know where her assailants were.
Both of them were pretty easy to pick out in a crowd but the street was so
crowded and Natalya was substantially smaller than most people. That had always
worked in her advantage but it could also be something of a hurdle. She decided
to enter a clothing store and run upwards, towards the tallest point of the
structure. Sure enough, one could get a great view from the area from the men
underwear section.

A young woman
looked at her and asked if she could help her. Natalya was breathing heavily.
She tried to smile and said she was just looking for some boxers for her
husband. The young woman smiled back and attempted to show some of the newest
models to Natalya. The woman stopped her by saying she was going to look around
first and then decide on something. The young lady nodded and told her that she
could look around all that she wanted, even in the changing rooms.

The girl walked
away leaving Natalya confused. What had she meant? She turned around quickly,
remembering why she was inside of the store. Sure enough, she saw the silver
mane of the woman that had killed so many people in the hotel just minutes ago.
In the distance, Natalya could hear the sound of several ambulances, probably
rushing to the place. She hoped the body count was low, as those people had
nothing to do with everything that was happening. It was all her fault.

She started
wandering around the store, in order to not look suspicious. She looked at some
male underwear, some of them with fun textures and prints but she wasn’t really
interested. She was remembering what had happened just over a day ago, when she
had stolen a series of documents from a rich man’s mansion, a very rich man
that was suspected to have links with several terrorists groups that would give
him the advantage if they were capable of reaching the higher spheres of power.

Natalya had
been sent to retrieve the information, as the people that had hired her had an
interest in it. She had been ordered to copy everything she had and take it
back herself to be given in person. They had also asked her not to use the
Internet, make phone calls or even talk to any people beyond the necessary
communication. Then, she remembered the young boy from the hotel and realized a
tear had come down her face. As she cleaned it off her face, she felt something
warmer. Natalya realized what the young woman had meant before, about the
changing rooms.

She walked down
one floor and entered the changing rooms with a blouse and a skirt she had
grabbed without even properly looking at them. She was assigned a stall and it
was then when she realized that one of the bullets had come way closer than she
had imagined. The projectile had burned her cheek, leaving a red line below her
right eye. She still had her purse hanging around her body, so she took out
some tissues and tried to clean her face as thoroughly as she was able to.

Natalya came
out of the store half an hour after she had entered. She decided the best thing
to do was to get to the airport. Her flight was still some hours away and it
was a priority to get the information back safe. After all, her business was
danger and that wasn’t the first time she had been shot or had actively been
targeted by someone. She walked for a bit until she found a big avenue. There,
she stopped a taxi and asked to be taken to the airport. The man had doubts but
she paid up front.

Arriving in the
airport, Natalya thought that it was possible that she could be getting older.
She was not the same age as when she had first entered that line of work. She
had been trained and recruited because she was agile, both mentally and
physically. But now she felt as if everything was getting a little bit too fast
for her. Besides, she kept thinking about the boy in the hotel and that had
never been an issue before. She had seen many bodies in her life but had never
been specially affected by them.

After
checking-in, she rushed to the security checkpoint as her flight was leaving in
less than twenty minutes. However, she stopped the moment she saw that damn
blonde hair again. And it was impossible to run away from that situation. So
she pulled the gun hiding in her purse and started shooting. Everyone around
was screaming and running but the two women were just hunting for each other.
They were doing what they had been doing for years and it was too late for them
both to stop.

Both ran out of
bullets and a physical confrontation ensued. Punches were thrown back and
forth. But then, experience appeared in the form of a selfie-stick lying on the
floor. Some scared tourist had just left it there, in the middle of the
shooting.

Natalya grabbed
it, removed the part that holds the camera with a powerful pull and then
impaled the blonde woman with it. The warm blood on her hand made her feel
alive but also scared. She had never been scared before and it couldn’t be the
best of signs. Not right then.

martes, 15 de noviembre de 2016

Everyone at the airport was ready. The staff
had put on their best clothes and every single corner of the small terminal
building had been cleaned to the last millimeter. From very early in the
morning, people had arrived to help organize every single part of this
impromptu visit. After all, it was the president of the most powerful country
in the world. And theirs was one of the poorest and most isolated ones on the
whole planet. However, the presidential plane had to refuel somewhere, so the
small nation had received the honor of hosting the president for a few hours.

From the moment they had been warned about the
impending arrival of the plane, hundreds of people were put to work. Not only
those in the airport, people who only really worked on weekdays and even then
only in certain time frames, but also every single operator and technician
available. They wanted not only the people to feel welcomed but also to make
the best work possible with the plane. They got fuel from the city’s reserves,
as the amount they had on the airport was not enough to refill a plane the size
of the one they were going to see in a few hours.

The process required almost every person in
the capital, a city of about a thousand people, to wake up and also help by
cleaning the streets of the city and the authorities enabling the movement of
fuel reserves from where they stored it to the airport, which was fairly close
to the city. People took to the streets with brooms and mops and every single
cleaning help they could get, but the truth was no one really knew if the
president was going to land and stay on the plane or walk around a little bit.
Many people were curious like that.

The president of the tiny nation was the one
that was moving all over his house, calling the right people and asking
everything from food to more cleaning products. He wanted to send a message
through TV but the people of the studios were helping around so he decided to
send it through the radio. It was much simpler and more effective; as it was
the medium of communication that people listened to while they were preparing
the city for the big arrival. Every single person in the country heard it and
everyone understood the importance of the visit.

To the eyes of the world, it was practically a
miracle that their country actually existed. To be honest, it had been a thing
of luck and one of those strange coincidences that happen out of nowhere. They
were too isolated and unimportant. Practically everything they had came from
their neighbor to the east. So they had known starvation and real poverty
because when that neighbor didn’t have enough for themselves, they suffered
too. But the world in general never really knew anything because they weren’t
watching, until now.

The country had no army but its people did
behave like one once the president’s message had reached every single person.
They knew they had around six hours to have everything ready. With luck, the
weather up in the clouds would delay the plane a bit more to give them more
time but they constantly checked with the aircraft and that didn’t seem to be
the case. Everyone had to do their best in the time given. Only an hour after
the president’s announcement, everything was coming up nicely and all citizens
were helping, even elders and children.

A huge amount of people arrived at the
terminal in order to use the old kitchens that some rundown businesses had not
used in several years. The idea was to cook a good amount of their national
food for the people arriving, as well as other dishes that they might like. It
wasn’t crazy to think that they would be very hungry, even at that early hour
of the day. After all, this was all going on in the darkness of the night. The
president was scheduled to arrive around eight o’clock in the morning, so they had
to wake up or not even sleep.

The cooking team was led by the nation
president’s chef, his own wife. It wasn’t like in other countries were the
president has everything and the people below him have nothing. In that nation,
everyone was basically the same. People hadn’t starved in some years but they
weren’t rich or even close to that. So the president’s wife decided it was best
if someone close to the government like her supervised the food. It was the
best way to guarantee that it would be perfect for someone with such a high
profile as the ruler of the richest country in the world.

They acknowledge that all those people in that
plane, around two hundred according to the information they had shared with
them, had been and eaten in places much better than their small country. That
was obvious and they didn’t feel bad about it. But they wanted them to leave
knowing a little bit more of their culture and about what they loved to eat and
drink in those lands. The menu had been defined by the president’s wife and she
was very confident that it was going to be one of the best feasts in the
recorded history of their nation.

It consisted of a special recipe for meatballs
using a kind of cheese that was made from goat milk, which also happened to be
used in their national beverage, which was kind of like a milkshake but less
thick and richer in flavor. They also cooked the goats in various ways and were
very proud about their vegetables and mushrooms, of which they had a very large
variety. Various dishes were cooked with all those ingredients and some spices
too.

The small country’s president arrived in the
airport only two hours before the arrival of the plane, to check everything
out. The terminal had been painted in record time by volunteers and the control
tower was bursting with life when, in normal days, it would only have one
person and not even all day. He thanked everyone there and then went to the
terminal’s commercial area where his wife and helpers were giving the final
touches to the food. The smell had flooded the building and it was very
delicious, so much that many stomachs growled loudly.

Then, he went outside and did a walk around
the tarmac and the runway. There wasn’t a single spec of dust anywhere, which
he thought was absolutely magnificent, especially for such a windy part of the
country. It seemed as if the weather was also helping them achieve their goal.
The red carpet in the tarmac was the same one that the president had stepped on
when he was inaugurated for his term, more than three years ago. A president’s
term was five years and he couldn’t be reelected, which he personally thought
was a good idea.

He decided to check the band that had been
practicing for hour in the cold and congratulated them for the amount of love
they were showing the country. He stayed a bit to hear them play and, to be
fair, they were not as prepared as he would have like, but there was no way of
getting better musicians with only an hour to go. They would have to do. What
made them special, at the end of the day, was that they played their
instruments with real passion and the idea of making their country proud. And
that was more than enough.

The president decided to wait for the plane in
the control tower. There, he would be able to know every detail about the
upcoming visit. When he stepped in, the plane had crossed into their airspace.
It would be only thirty minutes until they touched down in the runway. The
atmosphere was really special. Every single person in the tower, in the
terminal, in the tarmac and even in the city was ecstatic. This was, by far,
the most exciting thing to ever happen in their country. And they had all
worked together to make it the best day possible.

The plane came out of the clouds and landed,
in a very soft and elegant manner. Everyone applauded and greeted the people
inside through the radio. The president ran outside, getting ready with all
others. Many people from the city had come out of curiosity and they had been
allowed to stay a bit further away. The plane parked exactly where they had
determined it should go. For some minutes, nothing happened. Then, the door
opened and everyone stopped breathing for a second. Their moment had come.

domingo, 3 de abril de 2016

I don’t know if I hadn’t rested well enough
or maybe it was the fact that I was using earplugs to block all sounds coming
from my annoying roommates.I had fallen
asleep, like always, almost at three in the morning and wasn’t expecting to
have nothing notable to tell when I woke up. But then, nightmares and dreams
happen and apparently my brain is very active these days.

I
know I had a very active dream first. I don’t really remember what it was about
but I do remember when I woke up, covered in sweat, in the middle of the night.
Something had scared me or made me run because I was panting and sweating and
trying to breath. But, after all, I was still sleepy so I fell asleep again and
that next dream I remember very well.

It happened in an airport, just after I had
arrived from somewhere to Brasilia. I have no idea if it was actually Brasilia.
I have never been there myself but in the dream it was pretty clear that was
the city I was in. I walked around the airport and remembered walking with one
bag and looking at the incredible ceiling of the terminal and thinking that not
so many people used the airport. My subconscious didn’t really add that much
people to the dream, only some background “extras”. I walked a lot on that
airport, watching the stores and just enjoying myself.

Then, after many corridors, I arrived at what
appeared to be a hotel reception. There, there was a woman who checked me in
and joined me to my room, which had all curtains and blinds closed. Somehow, I
didn’t think it was strange or weird in any way. When she left, I immediately
lay down and rested for a while. Then, I noticed that it was actually very
early in the day still and that I had to take advantage of whatever time I had
in the city so I had thought of getting a taxi to take me downtown.

But this I only thought of. Apparently, I
couldn’t’ move from the bed anymore but I really wanted to. I didn’t want to
waste any time of my trip, which was short I guess, but nothing could make my
legs move. I could see the sunlight filtering through the curtains and somehow
that made me even sleepier than I already was.

I fell asleep in a dream and woke up a bit
later, the orange light of the afternoon entering the room.Again, I got worried I was wasting my time in
Brasilia so this time I was able to stand up and go to the bathroom. There, I
washed my face and started thinking that maybe I had no money to pay the hotel
fee. I worried as I checked my bag and went around the room. But then I
remembered I did have money so it wasn’t a problem. Curiously, I thought of a
trip I was going to make in real life, as if the two events had some relation
with the other.

I went back to sitting in bed and thought of
buying a low-cost ticket to Rio and check the city there, doing a favela tour
and taking lots of pictures. But I never got out of the hotel room; I didn’t
seem capable to do so. I woke up slowly, still thinking about the money. I was
sweating a bit and my covers were all around the place. The cold wind of the
night was freezing my feet and I had to fix it all to lie there more
comfortably. It was late and I had cancelled my alarm clock, which I put on
everyday to wake up early to write. I didn’t write a word that day.

That day, a Saturday, I decided to relax
completely. I didn’t do my daily workout either and showered after 1 PM. The
rest of the day was relaxing, except for the fact that an apparently important
football game was going to take place and there was people everywhere,
including my apartment, waiting for it to happen.

Decided to avoid that, I left to have lunch
and then wander around. I ended up exercising after all when I had to walk
eight kilometers to my house just because I wanted to take a stroll by the
ocean, which was covered by greyish clouds and seemed not to be in the right
mood for anyone to come close. I had thought the weather would be better but it
wasn’t. When I got home, my feet hurt and I was tired. That Saturday I fell
asleep pretty late too, even though I was tired. Something always distracts me.

I ended up having another dream. Or maybe it
was a nightmare. It had different stages or levels or whatever you want to call
them but they were all related: it was about me and my father and how we
couldn’t really communicate with each other. We argued about thing I don’t
remember in different locations that had absolutely nothing to do with is. I
think one of them was the former house of my grandfather and another one looked
like a market but one that I had never seen before.

The dream was exhausting. Even being in it, I
could notice my body wasn’t working correctly. I was breathing heavily and I
couldn’t help thinking it was because I seemed to run after my father a lot in
the dream. We moved around the scene like it was a theatre stage and it made me
dizzy but I went on doing it exactly the same way because, somehow, it made
sense that I did it that way.

He was being very harsh with me. He insulted
me in front of other family members and we fought and I wanted him to
understand something but I don’t really remember what that was. And he called
me a failure I think and then I realized I couldn’t speak. I tried very hard
but couldn’t. My face felt drowned and I woke up then.

But when I did, I strangely still dreaming
because I kept talking or, at least, trying to talk. I opened and closed my
mouth and reached for something or someone that wasn’t there and all of this
happened in my bed. I had my eyes opened and I remember it vividly. I fell
asleep right back and then my voice did work and I could speak and tell him
what I felt but he didn’t seem to care about what I had to say. He was so mean
and harsh that, when I woke up for good, I realized he wasn’t really my father.

I had to recover myself from that dream,
trying to slow down my breathing and walking outside to turn off that damn
light the idiots I live with always leave on. When I went back to bed I felt my
back being very wet and I wondered if wearing pajama pants had anything to do
with that. After all, I normally slept in my underwear and without a t-shirt
even and now I was wearing it all. Did that made me dream so much?

It was 7AM, according to my cellphone. I still
had some hours to rest so I decided to try and use them to calm myself down and
breathe easily. I tried to think of places filled with nature and calm and I
remembered two beautiful parks I had been in Amsterdam. Both day I had been
freezing but I always liked to go to places were normal people went instead of
the ones filled with tourists only.

That apparently helped because I fell asleep
for three hours but when I woke up, I gave myself some more minutes to relax,
to keep my eyes closed and to breath in order to calm myself down.

Two nights in a row my brain had given me
reasons to run around and worry and try to solve problems that weren’t there.
Or were they? What did those dreams meant, if they meant anything at all? I’ve
never really bought into all of that psychological shit that says that if you
dream about flying it means something. I don’t think the brain is that smart
But I do think you dream from your memory and it curious why your subconscious
uses certain memories to play around.

Waking up in the middle of the night, or
morning, sweaty and tired, is something that hadn’t happened to me in a while.
Normally I don’t remember what I dream but this time it was like both times I
had actually just been in those places. And maybe they were nightmares but I
have no idea of telling because there wasn’t something obviously scary about
them.

I just decided to write it all down because I
don’t want to forget anything about it. Maybe those dreams will come in handy
one day. Or maybe writing them down will make them go away or at least change.
Who knows?

viernes, 5 de febrero de 2016

As we headed to the station, to take that
small train that goes around every terminal, I decided to take his hand in
mine. Normally I would never do that but I decided this was the best moment to
do it. It was time not to mind anymore about who was watching or if they had
things to say. All the hate in the world could fall on me but I didn’t care
because I understood what he was going through. He needed much more than just
my hand in his, but I was happy to feel he took and squeezed it a bit, as if
telling me “Thanks, I needed this”.

We hadn’t spoken in several hours and I
decided I didn’t wanted to be the one to talk first. For me, it was a decision
he had to make because it was him who needed this time to reflect and think
about many things. Well, that was my guess anyway because I couldn’t be inside
his head. I did wonder though, about his thoughts and his secrets. But all of
that was his to have and not for me to know. I respect a person’s life, and a
life always has secrets and things you rarely share with anyone.

The train station was a bit crowded and, oddly
enough, most other passengers were foreigners, just like us. We were in San
Francisco international airport and in our train there wasn’t a single
Californian. We sat down, put our bad in front of us and felt the pull of the
train beneath us, moving slowly towards the next terminal. I noticed my eyes
were closing a bit, rocked by the movement of the train. The flight had been
very long and we still had another one to go. I had never travelled so far
before and felt a bit guilty, as I hadn’t paid for one dime. It had been all
him.

He squeezed my hand again and I turned towards
him. His eyes looked sad but they felt stronger than before. He looked at me as
if wanting to tell me something but there was no need. I proceeded to lay my
head on his shoulder and he did kind of the same. I closed my eyes but I
couldn’t really sleep. I just felt closer to him now and didn’t want that
moment to end. But the train, after two other stops, finally arrived to the
terminal we needed to be in.

When we stepped out, we walked slowly towards
some escalators and eventually to a commercial area. We passed a coffee shop
and I asked him if he wanted to grab a bite. He didn’t say anything, just
nodded as he yawned from exhaustion. As we wouldn’t let go, he joined me in the
queue. We bought two big sandwiches each with cappuccinos and a big muffin to
share. After we paid we found a little table a bit separated from the rest of
the people and sat there. Our baggage was there too, with the few things we had
been able to bring for such a short trip. We started eating in silence,
watching people go by.

We let go for a few seconds, to take our coats
off, but he grabbed my hand again as he ate his sandwich. He ate it a bit too
fast, he was hungry and he hadn’t told me. I wanted to ask him why he hadn’t
told me he was hungry if maybe his stomach hurt or something. I was growing
very mad for a moment out of such a silly thing and even my hands began to
sweat so he noticed I was going through something. He looked at me and I saw
his watery eyes looking at me. I had never thought they were as beautiful as
they were in that moment and I felt bad for that.

I at my sandwich as he drank his cappuccino,
drying his eyes with a thick napkin they had given us. I saw he wasn’t feeling
good, I saw he was still broken and I hated him for not talking to me. I felt
so far from him and I didn’t understood what I was doing there, why he had
brought me there if he wasn’t going to tell me anything. I had had it with all
the silences and considerations. I didn’t wanted to wonder anymore about what
he was thinking or what he wanted to say.

Suddenly, he stood up and left. When he was
two steps away I thought I heard the word “bathroom”. He had used his voice
once only to tell me such a stupid thing? I almost made my cappuccino cup make
a flip in its own plate but luckily my fist landed in the right place. People
looked at me anyway and I just covered my face and lowered it to finish my
sandwich and the cappuccino. I took the muffin and took a bit chunk of it with
my teeth. The sweetness of the chocolate helped my spirit feel a little bit
better.

When he came back, I noticed he had been
crying but I didn’t say a word. I only gave him his half of the muffin but he
didn’t grab it so I ate it. I wasn’t going to waste a good muffin just because
he wouldn’t talk to me. We took the baggage and started walking around the
terminal, trying to make time for the next flight. I checked our gate on a
screen and he stood up behind me, not even looking at the screen but at the
airplanes on the tarmac. I hate to see him do that because I felt I just
couldn’t leave him, ever.

We got to our gate and sat down by the counter
in order to be ready when they called us for boarding, which would began in a
matter of two hours. I wanted to fall asleep or at least feel I wanted to be
asleep but that time had passed. Maybe it was the coffee or the fact we had
eaten something, by I couldn’t fall asleep.

Then I felt his hand grabbing mine and, of
course, I didn’t push him away. Because I wanted to feel his hand and smell his
scent and taste his lips. But I didn’t now when I should go for a kiss, a hug
or a conversation. I felt lost and kind of in a disadvantage. After all, we had
just arrived from his mother’s funeral.

He squeezed my hand and also stroke it and I
just had to look at him. But he wasn’t looking at me but, again, at the planes
outside. I squeezed his fingers softly and he did look at me at then he came
close and kissed me. His face felt a bit cold, his lips a bit dry, but I knew
those were the kisses I had learned to love although covered in a veil of
sadness I had to understand. He let go of my hand and put his hand on my face
and just keep kissing me. We stopped after a few seconds, smiling.

Our hands stayed together as people arrived.
The plane was going to be full, that was certain. He kept looking to the planes
and then he started watching his watch. He was clearly anxious to get back home
or maybe worried he had to go back in a plane. He wasn’t that friendly with
them. Finally, the boarding process began and some minutes later we were
already inside the plane, sitting side my side with and old lady as our
neighbor. She was the first person to speak to him and he responded.

Hearing his voice was the best thing for me. I
loved it so much it filled me with joy, tumbling down all the feelings that had
gone through my body earlier.I smile at
the lady who told me I had a very charming husband. Of course, I didn’t correct
her but my blushed cheeks should have been enough to tell anyone she wasn’t
exactly right. As a matter of fact, we had been boyfriends for a bit more than
a year. That’s why I felt so strange doing all of this, the trip and meeting
the family and all that.

I mean, I had met them earlier, his mom too.
Bu that situation was like getting to know them all again, especially his
father who was obviously different now. He interrupted my thoughts by
whispering in my ear: “Would you like to?”

He caught me completely unprepared. I started
to sweat again, my heart racing as the plane separated from the terminal and
made its way to the runway. He grabbed my hand and from his pocket took out a
small box. I started coughing right there. He knew I did that when nervous
because he just opened it to reveal a very simple but beautiful ring. He took
it out from the box and took my hand. Now, he asked me in a normal voice,
making some heads turn.

- Would you marry me?

I
felt all of them watching me, even if there were maybe only three people paying
attention. In my mind, I revisited the funeral and what had happened earlier
and the day we met and how we shared our lives and then, I remembered him
watching the planes. I remembered that feeling I had when saw him standing
there, his back towards me, looking at the tarmac.

I knew his body and his way of dealing with
things. I knew how he ate, how he peed, how he showered, what his favorite
curse word was and how high he could jump. I knew I like his hugs and his voice.
He had said to me he liked my body and my eyes and my mind. I also knew there
were things he didn’t know about me and I didn’t know about him. There were secrets
and thought that were private. So many feelings.